In follow-up to my survey about what editors in general read for recreation (What Do Editors Read?, I invited fiction editors to share their Top 10 favorite novels, along with something about their background and experience.

Thirty-two editors responded, comprising freelancers plus one cluster of staff and contract editors for a single romance publisher. No one working for a Big 5 traditional publisher participated, giving unbalanced results. However, I wasn’t attempting a rigidly scientific survey of the total editorial population. As with my first survey, I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity about what other editors read, and to share their recommendations for our collective enjoyment. The complete list, owing to length, is posted separately from this essay on the file downloads page at wordsnSync as “What Fiction Editors Read: List of Titles”.

Note that not every responding editor answered every question in the survey; or sometimes they combined answers, or gave more or fewer titles when I asked for ten, and so forth. Thus in this essay I cannot always give “X out of 32” results for a given topic. Since I was looking for patterns rather than conducting a true statistical analysis, I took the liberty of rounding numbers up or down or otherwise generalizing in cases where deviations occurred.

Common denominators

It comes as no surprise to learn that fiction editors read a lot of fiction. What is surprising is how many novels they find time to read. While one editor reports only reading fiction for work, the rest read anywhere from two to sixty (!) novels per month for recreation. Most of them also read short fiction, poetry, blogs, magazines, news media, and nonfiction of all types.

Such heavy reading is somewhat understandable, in that almost half the responders work part time. For them, as with the two retirees, more opportunity for leisure reading is theoretically available. But we can’t draw a blanket conclusion from that, because in several cases the responders edit part time and do something else for the balance of full-time employment—and of course they have the obligations and complexities of a personal life (details of which were not addressed in the survey).

The survey asked broad questions about occupation, education, writing background, and reading habits, to see what other commonalities might exist. The primary criterion for participation was that at least two-thirds of their professional editing work be fiction. In this everyone qualified. There were no other 100% matches, though several predominant features emerged. For instance, all but one responder is female. Three-quarters of the responders are older than forty, and of these, most are in their fifties and sixties. The full age span is twenty-eight to seventy-eight.

Twenty-five responders come from the United States, five from Canada, and one each from the United Kingdom and Australia. Approximately two-thirds of the group have college degrees, of which twelve are in English or a closely related subject. Seven of the thirty-two have a certificate of some sort in editing.

In years of experience, approximately half the responders have been editing professionally for ten years or less and the other half for longer. Six have more than twenty years of experience, and one has more than forty. Most have worked in fiction the bulk of their careers, focusing on novels but also accepting novellas, short stories, and flash fiction (super-short stories), along with assorted nonfiction.

A majority of the responders work with indie authors as their main clients, with a few also working with publishers and packagers. All but one report that they offer multiple types of editing and associated services (the exception being a dedicated developmental editor). Twenty-six of the editors are writers themselves, and almost two-thirds of them have published. Only one-third, however, has published in fiction.

Reading tastes

As readers, the responding fiction editors like darn near everything, with literary, crime, and historical novels dominating. But many of the responding editors enjoy romance and young adult novels, as well as science fiction, fantasy, and eclectic other. The editors read in all formats, with almost two-thirds liking a mix of print, ebook, and audiobook compared to those who prefer print only. One editor has moved entirely away from print, preferring to get her stories via ebooks and audiobooks.

Series

Many of the editors favor series or complete bodies of work by a given author. These responses skewed the results, because among the total consolidated list of 263 novels, not all are unique titles but rather representative titles of a series, or just the series name, or “all works” by an individual. Ninety-four—just over one-third—of all editor responses mentioned part or all of a series. Frequently, responders listed single titles that are part of a series, but they didn’t list the entire series (the rest I uncovered during a title/author spelling check online). I suspect that in many of those cases the responder read all volumes in the series and simply didn’t say so.

Specifics of series titles are shown on the complete list. Below are the series names that came up, and the number of times beyond one that they were mentioned, followed by the shorter list of favorite bodies of work by a given author.

Favored series:

A Wrinkle in Time series (2), Madeleine L’Engle

Adam Dagliesh series, P. D. James

All Souls trilogy, Deborah Harkness

Amelia Peabody series, Elizabeth Peters

Anita Blank, Vampire Hunter series, Laurell K. Hamilton

Atticus Kodiak series, Greg Rucka

Austenland series, Shannon Hale

Cairo series, Naguib Mahfouz

Checquy Files series, Daniel O’Malley

Chicago Star series, Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Chronicles of Ixia, Maria V. Snyder

CIA Spies series, Linda Howard

Colorado Trust series, Stacey Joy Netzel

Cowboy-Fiancé series, Donna Michaels

Culture series, Iain M. Banks

Dempsey series, Jennifer Crusie

Detective Inspector Chen, Liz Williams

Discworld series (2), Terry Pratchett

Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey

Dresden Files series (2), Jim Butcher

Drumberley series, D. E. Stevenson

Ender series, Orson Scott Card

Fever series, Karen Marie Moning

Gallaghers of Ardmore series, Nora Roberts

Hainish Cycle series, Ursula K Le Guin

Haitian Revolutionary series, Madison Smartt Bell

Harry Potter series (4), J. K. Rowling

Hazelwood High series, Sharon M. Draper

Heartbreaker Bay series, Jill Shalvis

Heralds of Valdemar series (2), Mercedes Lackey

Hidden Wolves series, Kaje Harper

Immortals After Dark series, Kresley Cole

In Death series, J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

Irin Chronicles series, Elizabeth Hunter

Italy Intrigue series, Stacey Joy Netzel

I-Team series, Pamela Clare

Jack Reacher series, Lee Child

Juliette Chronicles, Tahereh Mafi

Kirsten Lavransdatter trilogy, Sigrid Undset

Law of Moses series, Amy Harmon

Leaphorn and Chee Navajo police series, Tony Hillerman

Life Lessons series, Kaje Harper

Little House series, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Lives of the Mayfair Witches series, Anne Rice

Lizzy & Diesel series, Janet Evanovich

Logan Family Saga series, Mildred D. Taylor

Lord Peter Wimsey series, Dorothy L. Sayers

Lords of Misrule series, Andy Graham

Manawaka series, Margaret Laurence

Marrying Stone series, Pamela Morsi

Maze Runner series, James Dashner

Midnight in Austenland, Shannon Hale

Midwife Mystery series, Sam Thomas

Millennium series, Steig Larsson

Outlander series (3), Diana Gabaldon

Plainsong series, Kent Haruf

Regeneration series, Pat Barker

Riftwar series, Raymond Feist

Riyria Revelations series, Michael J. Sullivan

Shannara series, Terry Brooks

Silo series, Hugh Howey

Sinner’s Grove series, A. B. Michaels

Song of Ice and Fire series, George R. R. Martin

Species Imperative trilogy, Julie Czerneda

Starbridge series, Susan Howatch

Starcatchers series, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Stephanie Plum series, Janet Evanovich

Sword of Truth series, Terry Goodkind

The Black Dagger Brotherhood series (2), J. R. Ward

The Black Stallion series, Walter Farley

The Bourne trilogy , Robert Ludlum

The Bronze Horseman series, Paullina Simons

The Cat Who series, Lillian Jackson Braun

The Chalion series, Lois McMaster Bujold

The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis

The Deed of Paksennarion series, Elizabeth Moon

The Hitchhiker’s Guide series (2), Douglas Adams

The Hunger Games series (2), Suzanne Collins

The Lace Reader series, Brunonia Barry

The Lord of the Rings series (2), J. R. R. Tolkien

The Pillars of the Earth series, Ken Follett

The Raven Cycle series, Maggie Stiefvater

The Sandman series, Neil Gaiman

Thessaly series, Jo Walton

Tillerman Cycle series (2), Cynthia Voigt

Vampire Chronicles series, Anne Rice

Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold

Wolf Hall series, Hilary Mantel

Favored author bodies of work:

Clive Cussler

Harlan Coben

John Grisham

Lawrence Block

Lee Child

Nora Roberts

Sandra Brown (mysteries only)

Works such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia were sometimes listed as standalone titles and other times as series. I’ve included them under the series listing because most people who read them read all volumes.

Duplicate titles

In the main, responders mentioned individual titles. The list below shows novels mentioned by two or more responders (with the number in parentheses indicating how many more than two).

Beloved, Toni Morrison

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee (3)

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (6)

Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier

The Dispossessed, Ursula K Le Guin

The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin

The Living, Annie Dillard

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Duplicate authors

Individual authors were mentioned by multiple responders in conjunction with different titles. There were instances where a responder listed different titles by the same author on their own list, and also a few cases where one responder mentioned a specific title and a second responder mentioned “all works” by the same author or a series. The list below, however, only includes authors mentioned by different responders, specifying different titles.

Barbara Kingsolver

Charles Dickens

Cormac McCarthy

C. S. Lewis

Daphne Du Maurier

Haruki Murakami

Jane Austen

Jodi Picoult

John Steinbeck

J. R. R. Tolkien

Linda Howard

Madeleine L’Engle

Margaret Atwood

Thomas Hardy

Toni Morrison

Ursula Le Guin

Virginia Woolf

Oddballs and exceptions

Not every responder understood the directions in the questionnaire, or else rushed through it and missed a request. For instance, I asked exclusively for novels, but two responders included memoirs and one included a nonfiction title. Although I’ve included these titles on the complete list, I do not include them in the full count.

Likewise, the request for “your favorite novelist” was commonly ignored, or people just couldn’t answer because they had so many (with one responder saying, “You’re kidding, right?”). Among those who did answer, or listed multiple authors, there was erratic correlation between favorite authors and those on the individual’s Top 10 list. Favorite authors mentioned are shown below (with the number in parentheses indicating how many times more than once their names came up).

Anne McCaffrey

Anne Rice

Bess Streeter Aldrich

Beverly Nault

Charles Dickens

Connie Willis

Cormac McCarthy

D. E. Stevenson

Dean Koontz

Diana Gabaldon (2)

Dick Francis

Donna Tartt

Dorothy Sayers

Douglas Adams

Drayton Mayrant

Eliot Baker

Elizabeth Cadell

Elizabeth Moon

Fyodor Dostoevsky

George R. R. Martin

Georgette Heyer

Helen MacInnes

J. R. R. Tolkien

J. K. Rowling

James Patterson

Jane Austen (2)

Janet Evanovich

J. D. Ward

Jodi Picoult

Jonathan Franzen

Joseph C. Lincoln

Judy Ann Davis

Karen Marie Moning

Laurel Hamilton

Linda Howard

Lois McMaster Bujold

Louise Erdrich

Madeleine L’Engle

Maeve Binchy

Markus Zusak

Mary Balogh

Nevada Barr (2)

Nora Roberts (2)

P. D. James

Patricia Cornwall

Peter Carey

Peter Mayle

Rita Bay

Ruth Rendell

Sam Thomas

Sigrid Undset

Terry Brooks

Thomas Hardy

Tony Hillerman

Survey overlaps

While processing the fiction editors’ questionnaires, I looked for overlaps with my first survey, even though it’s an apples-and-oranges comparison. The first survey involved thirteen nonfiction-dominant editors, while this one involved thirty-two fiction-dominant editors. Nevertheless, their tastes crossed thirteen times for specific titles and seventeen times for authors (meaning, different books by the same author mentioned twice or more). Most of these titles and authors can be considered “literary” and/or “classic.”

Title overlaps:

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Lord of the Rings series, J. R. R. Tolkien

Persuasion, Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Discworld series, Terry Pratchett

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin

Author overlaps:

Jane Austen

Charles Dickens

Charlotte Brontë

Connie Willis

David Mitchell

Dick Francis

Edith Wharton

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Ian McEwan

John Fowles

J. R. R. Tolkien

Margaret Atwood

Michael J. Sullivan

Sarah Waters

Terry Pratchett

Umberto Eco

Virginia Woolf

Conclusions

Putting it all together, I observed three superstars—Jane Austen, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis—whose names came up multiple times no matter what criterion I used to view and sort the reading lists of the fiction and nonfiction editors I surveyed, separately or combined. Another standout was Terry Pratchett, whose enormous Discworld series appealed to editors of both types.

While I was not surprised to see these and many other familiar names on so many people’s lists, I was surprised to see who didn’t appear. Agatha Christie, for example. She is considered one of — if not the — top-selling novelists of all time, yet none of the fiction responders in my survey mentioned her. She did, however, appear once on the nonfiction editors’ list (also on my own list, which was appended to that essay but not counted in the results).

Among the fiction editors, there seems to be a gap between classic and contemporary works that leaves many vintage mega-sellers behind, such as Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey, Jackie Collins and Barbara Cartland, Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon, Georges Simenon and Erle Stanley Gardner, and many others, all of whom were hugely popular in their day. Also notably absent is household name Stephen King (who did, unexpectedly, appear on one nonfiction editor’s literary-biased list). But J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame had a strong presence, even though that series was marketed for young adults, whereas Danielle Steele, still writing prolifically with an enormous fan base, wasn’t mentioned even by the editors who gobble up romance and women’s fiction.

Carolyn Haley, an award-winning novelist, lives and breathes novels. Although specializing in fiction, she edits across the publishing spectrum — fiction and nonfiction, corporate and indie — and is the author of two novels and a nonfiction book. She has been editing professionally since 1977, and has had her own editorial services company, DocuMania, since 2005. She can be reached at dcma@vermontel.com or through her websites, DocuMania and New Ways to See the World. Carolyn also blogs at Adventures in Zone 3 and reviews at New York Journal of Books.

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6 Comments

This is a fascinating survey, and a great source of new titles/authors I should read. I noticed there’s no mention of the Brontes and Jane Eyre (unless I missed it), which I consider one of the best books of all time.